At the Turn of the Eras, or Thoughts of a Forgotten General
Soldiers of revolutionary France
From the Guillotine to the SVO, or Mass Armies: From Dawn to Dusk
It is no secret that innovations in military affairs often lead to a change of eras, adjusting the physical dimension of the century. Historical its course differs from the strictly limited time scale of centuries.
Thus, born together with the concept of “nation” by the decision of the Convention in August 1793, the mass army of revolutionary France left the 18th century in the past even before the completion of its full cycle, making the era of “wars in lace” a thing of the past.
The era of mass armies had arrived, fundamentally changing the tactics and nature of war, as well as its social component, increasing the role of the armed people in socio-political life, sometimes transforming them from an object into a subject of history.
The peak of this role was the year 1917, which shook Russia, reflected, however, in January of the following year, in the maxim of a simple sailor, who suddenly for a moment turned into the arbiter of the fate of a huge country: “The guard is tired.”
The deputies of the legitimate Constituent Assembly failed to find a coherent answer and handed power over to the Bolsheviks. And in this regard, it's worth recalling the cinematography that artistically expressed the emerging realities – S.I. Yutkevich's work with the telling title "A Man with a Gun."
"Chief of the guard, sailor A. Zheleznyakov of the battleship Respublika, who dispersed the Constituent Assembly"; painting by Yu. K. Artsybashev
Albeit briefly, a man with a gun amid the ruins of a fallen empire became a subject of history. Before that, his role—in this case, not in Russia, but in the "common man" in general, at least in Europe—was succinctly characterized in the magnificent "Fanfan le Tulip": war is the only entertainment kings can indulge in, in which the people can participate.
The era of dominance on the battlefields by huge conscript armies, born under the sound of the falling guillotine blade, has come to an end with the final salvos of the Iran-Iraq War – senseless and merciless.
But back then, in 1988 and the first decade after, this wasn't obvious to everyone, especially to the post-Soviet officer corps, which had been raised on large-scale military exercises and, accordingly, thought in terms of mass armies and frontline operations, even though the First Chechen War had already raised the question of the professionalization of troops and the degree of effectiveness of conscript units on the modern battlefield.
"West-81"; these types of large-scale exercises shaped the officers' thinking in terms of mass, conscript armies
About thirty years passed, and a special military operation raised the issue of the advisability of staffing the Armed Forces with conscripts with even greater urgency in the context of a significant transformation of previous ideas about tactics and operational art.
It is noteworthy that the era of mass armies survived two historical centuries, since the protracted, uncalendar-free 19th century sank into oblivion with the first salvos in the Balkans, East Prussia and Belgium in 1914.
First World War
Moreover, the Soviet and Russian historian I. M. Dyakonov, in his historiosophical work “The Paths of History,” believes that the First World War buried the last vestiges of the Middle Ages:
The war, meanwhile, had reached such a scale and had become so all-encompassing that it was no longer possible to wage it on the basis of medieval concepts of military honor.
Iran-Iraq; as if – in the previous photo – the plots of the same war
In this regard, the example of the Japanese is telling. During the war with the Russian Empire, they portrayed themselves as magnanimous Asian knights toward captured Russian officers. However, the vast majority of them lost their humanity during the Second World War, earning the deserved hatred of all peoples who came into contact with them—a hatred that remains lingering in memory to this day. It remains lingering, rightly so, for there is reason to believe that the Japanese have forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
Moreover, the First World War made another vestige of the Middle Ages a thing of the past – localism in appointments to high command positions, at least in the reality of the Russian Empire, when Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich the Younger was removed from the post of commander-in-chief, having been previously appointed to it only because of his belonging to the House of Romanov, as was the case with Nikolai Nikolaevich the Elder, who was appointed by his brother-monarch to lead the army in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, but who was not fit for the position he occupied by any criteria other than family ties.
Nikolai Nikolaevich the Younger; his appointment as commander-in-chief was a kind of vestige of the Middle Ages.
The younger's royal nephew, who replaced him, at least transferred the actual military functions to his chief of staff, Infantry General M.V. Alekseev.
Revealed in the gunpowder smoke, dampness, and lice-infested trenches surrounded by barbed wire, in the suffocation of blinding and poisonous gases, in the infernal nightmare of "lunar" landscapes of monstrous destruction, the 20th century, in military terms, ended, I believe, precisely with the cessation of the aforementioned Iran-Iraq slaughter. Politically, in my view, the curtain fell on the interlude of the last century three years later in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
Unwitting gravediggers of the last century?
It's symptomatic: the 19th century was killed by the dim-witted figure of Wilhelm II, not without the participation of his august Russian cousin, and the following century was brought to an end by three even more dim-witted figures who, under different, normal circumstances, would never have reached the pinnacle of power. Truly, history is moved not only by outstanding personalities, but also by their opposites.
And so the world is once again at a crossroads. Is it on the threshold of a new, non-calendar age? In any case, we are witnessing fundamentally changing perceptions of war, including as a social phenomenon, for Russian society has yet to experience and comprehend the psychological, social, and perhaps even political consequences of the Second World War.
Is the restored Mariupol a symbol of the new century?
But it is undeniable that history is taking a new cyclical turn: military service is increasingly becoming the preserve of a relatively narrow circle of professionals, rather than a civic duty.
A special topic: modern young people's understanding of their civic duty and how it relates to military service. This deserves a separate article, but here I'll just note: in the atomized society of large metropolitan areas, with ever-increasing signs of hedonism engendered by the benefits of civilization, conscription is unlikely to be popular with the majority of our compatriots who acquire civil rights and responsibilities with their high school diploma.
Accordingly, the question becomes relevant: what will be the nature of the Armed Forces of the future, will the political role of the army in society increase, following the example of Rome in the era of Sulla and Marius?
The first one, who brought the legion into the Eternal City contrary to custom, came to my mind in connection with the Prigozhin rebellion two years ago, when the country witnessed an attempt to give the armed formation a political role that was alien to it in Russian reality.
And the foreign policy situation was also somewhat similar: Rome was, after all, waging war with Mithridates, and Sulla, like E. V. Prigogine, arrived from the theater of military operations.
And it is not without reason that I mentioned Marius: having reformed the army to fight the Teutons and Cimbri, he, perhaps unwittingly, took a step towards turning it into a political force, which transformed the very appearance of the Roman Republic, creating the preconditions for its transformation into an empire.
In short, the question of the balance between conscripts and professional units in the Armed Forces remains to be answered. The key is that these efforts prioritize the security interests of the state, not those of individual agencies or individuals.
The Murder of Europe and Its Unheard Prophets
For my part, I note that similar questions were raised by the First World War, which destroyed the Europe born in Westphalia in 1648. Within a few months of its outbreak, the war demonstrated the crisis and ineffectiveness of previous forms of armed struggle, and four years later, mass armies became a threat to the powers that be in the Entente and Triple Alliance.
Yes, they haven't gone anywhere, although even then, a century ago, some military experts questioned their effectiveness in a future war—as they do now, especially during the summer battles of 2023, when the enemy tried to break through to the Sea of Azov, and the Russian army, consisting of conscripts, resembled the French Guard at Shevardino, which Napoleon never brought into the Battle of Borodino on a fine and bloody August day in 1812, despite Murat's pleas.
That said, I don't advocate the use of conscripts in the aforementioned defensive battles, or in the Air Defense Forces in general, as I have no information about the level of their combat training or its adequacy for the goals and objectives of modern warfare. And certainly: excessive losses among conscripts would create a threat of social unrest. It was already unsettled by those two days in June two years ago.
But another thing is also undeniable: an army staffed by conscription is a serious burden on the country's budget, and the SVO is raising questions about the justification for its existence in its current form.
On the brink of a new war, or the belated will be swept away
Indeed, the question of the feasibility of such a huge army was raised by military analysts a century ago. Among them was our compatriot, Major General Boris Vladimirovich Gerua.
Major General B.V. Gerua
Like a number of military intellectuals, he saw the ominous contours of "new clashes brewing" at the end of World War I, in which he had fought. His preface to his book of reflections on the future army, "Hordes," sounds prophetic: "Events are moving swiftly and decisively, not waiting for those who are late or inattentive. They will be swept away and crushed by the flood of new life."
Yes, from the height of post-knowledge one might think that there is nothing special in the given lines – in twenty years, the Second World War will indeed break out.
But one must read E. M. Remarque to sense the silence that fell almost overnight upon young people, their psyches and often their health damaged, in dirty and torn overcoats; to feel with one's skin their hope that such a hell, from which many were never able to escape, unable to cope with what would later be called post-traumatic stress disorder, would never be repeated.
And in the first post-war years, returning to civilian life, hardly any veterans paid attention to Marshal F. Foch's maxim: "This is not peace. This is a truce for 20 years." And who would have known about it in the pre-internet age?
Veterans had difficulty reintegrating into the civilian life brilliantly described by Remarque in "The Return" and "The Black Obelisk." In France, not only society but also the political establishment, having fenced themselves off from the Germans by the Maginot Line, apathetically watched the rebuilding of the German army—or, more precisely, the construction of a new and modern one, its occupation of the Rhineland, the absorption of Austria, the occupation of Czechoslovakia, and the defeat of Poland. In the latter case, however, they were already moving sluggishly.
There were exceptions in the Third Republic, but they went unheard—Charles de Gaulle with his "On the Edge of the Sword," for example. Curiously, Gueroy and de Gaulle published their works almost simultaneously: the former in 1923, the latter two years later.
Gerua draws attention to the formation of “self-proclaimed armed organizations” after the First World War and the Civil War.
It's worth remembering here that ISIS, banned in Russia, was largely formed not only on the foundation of a destructive ideology but also on the left-behind officers of the collapsed Iraqi army, as were rebel groups in Libya and, presumably, Syria. The crisis of Ukrainian statehood gave rise to the Right Sector paramilitary groups and the neo-Nazi Azov and Aidar groups.
What is the fate of these Iraqi officers who survived the collapse of the army and the state?
Moreover, during periods of military defeat, a disorganized army can pose a threat to an unstable ruling regime, as discussed in the article "Ukraine at a Crossroads, or the Untrodden Path of Military Dictatorship?"
In other words, a conscript army, when well-trained, is an effective tool in the hands of a strong government. However, as soon as the latter weakens, the army can become a threat, including through the formation of unauthorized units from the disintegrating armed forces.
Another pressing issue related to a conscription-based army, noted by Gerua, is the direct dependence of the Armed Forces' effectiveness on the coherence of the mobilization apparatus. We'll begin our discussion with this in the next article. To be continued.
References
Gerua B.V. Polls. Sofia: Russian-Bulgarian Book Publishing House, 1923
Gerua B.V. Memories of My Life. Vol. 1 and 2. Paris. Military History Publishing House "Tanais", 1969, 1970
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